


crack my ribcage open and pull my heart right through

by primrosee



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Crying, Earth C, Eventually Requited Love, Happy Ending, Implied Anxiety, Implied Insomnia, John-centric, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, Past Memories, Post-Game, Post-Sburb, Self-Esteem Issues, Unrequited Love, a group of song-based oneshots, break-ups, dwelling, each chapter is connected, implied depression, lots and lots of crying, not exactly a continuation; but they are connected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-05 00:51:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11566890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primrosee/pseuds/primrosee
Summary: You pretend that you don't exist because it's much easier than dealing with the present.[post sburb. earth c. kinda not canon compliant.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gayde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayde/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!! this is for ecstatic because they're the reason i listened to this song  
> also they're very nice
> 
> ye

> _ “and i am permanently preoccupied with your past _
> 
> _ i’ve been around long enough now _
> 
> _ to know that good things never last _
> 
> _ they never last.” _
> 
> —the front bottoms, swimming pool

Most of the things you remember of your dad have to do with him being in the kitchen. Baking cakes. Making holiday dinners while your family members poured in through the front door, crowding you in the living room, pinching your cheeks and talking about how fast you were growing up, asking you if you’d play piano for them because there wasn’t much they could remember about you, but the fact that you liked piano was always one of the things on the short list of things they decided to remember about you. Pouring you glasses of juice while he smiled at you, that happy-but-sad vague smile he’d always had, the one that always made you sad in the strangest of ways even though you never thought your dad was quite  _ that  _ sad.

Since the end of the game, you haven’t stepped foot in the kitchen. If you want anything to eat (which you rarely do, anyway) you scavenge around for whatever food you can, even if that means going outside. It’s hard to avoid people you know on this earth because you know a lot of them, too many of them, so when you go out you cover yourself up the best you can and if someone notices you, you turn and run back to your house. Food isn’t that important, anyway.

The season on Earth C never changes. It’s always in the seventies, and when you long for winter you shut all of the windows in your house, close the blinds, lock the doors, and turn on all of the fans and ac’s you can find, and then you light a fire in the fireplace and sit by it. Sometimes you make s’mores, but only if you have marshmallows, which you rarely do. You sit by the fireplace for hours and rock yourself back and forth, finding comfort in the fire and the blanket you wrap around your shoulders.

You cut ties with your friends the best you can. They still message you, of course, still Snapchat you useless things and sometimes not-so useless things, things like questions as to why you’re ignoring them, or why they never see you outside of your house even though they know you’re in there because sometimes they can catch a glimpse of you from outside. You haven’t answered them in months. You would think they’d stop trying to catch your attention, think they’d realize that you’re ignoring them on purpose and hate you like you want them to, but your friends always were persistent.

Some days you don’t even get out of bed. Other days, you get out of bed and lay on the floor, counting the cracks in the ceiling even though there aren’t many of them. You still have that bunny Dave got you for your thirteenth birthday, and you become dependent on it. You keep it with you in your bed, you set it above the fireplace when you sit in the living room, and if you go out you always have it stuffed somewhere hidden, usually in a bag. You treat it like a human being, talking to it and complaining to it and telling it secrets and whatever other things you can’t—won’t—tell your best friends.

There’s a part of you that misses them. Rose’s black-lipped smile, Jade’s constant cheerful demeanor that seemed to be shaken by no one. Dave’s stupid jokes, his irony, the way he looked at you when he thought you weren’t watching him. You wonder if there’s a part of him that still loves you, but you don’t know. Maybe you’re reading too far into things.

You lay on your stomach on the floor with your face buried in the carpet. It smells like the lavender cleaner your dad used to put down every Thursday before he vacuumed. You tuck the bunny under your arm and blabber to it about nothing while your phone vibrates like crazy, your friends desperate to have some kind of contact with you. You don’t gratify them with any response. You know you’re being a prick, but you’ve come to terms with it, so it hardly bothers you anymore.

There’s a knock at your front door and a weirdly quiet call of, “John, dude?” and you know it’s Dave but it’s so hard to tell when he talks so softly, because that just isn’t who he is. You go stone-still and pretend you don’t hear him in case he gets smart and looks in one of the windows. “This isn’t cool,” and he sounds angry, finally, like you deserve.

You wind your fingers in the carpet as though you’re holding yourself there, as though if you let go you’d fly away. Another knock at the door, another call of your name. You tighten your grip on the bunny tucked underneath your arm. What’s in the past should stay in the past, and you’d think he would understand that, being a time player and all. The bunny under your arm is proof you can’t let go of what used to be, though, and you know you’re a hypocrite. At least you can admit it.

“John, come on, I know you’re fucking in there.”

You flatten yourself and act like you aren’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i literally hate how this turned out  
> not new tho because i hate my writing so?
> 
> the oneshots are all based after the same song, but there were a few lyrics i liked and wanted to write about.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you left me a comment, i promise i'm working on replying to it!!  
> i never leave a comment...un-replied?
> 
> anyway, second chapter!  
> i never finish anything but this is a gift so i SHALL

> _ “how low is your self-esteem? _
> 
> _ and how low could it possibly be? _
> 
> _ i know, i know you’re in love with me _
> 
> _ and i’ve been ignoring you” _
> 
> —the front bottoms, swimming pool

You don’t think you’ll ever be able to get used to how quiet your house sounds when you turn everything off. You have vivid memories of it always being noisy in your house, whether it be because the neighbors were playing too-loud music next door or because your dad was baking something in the kitchen, but now, it’s always completely silent. You play music to drown out the sheer silence of the house, silence loud enough to make your ears ring for hours on end while you lay on your sofa and stare at your cracked, water-stained ceiling.

You’re waiting for your friends to finally give up on you. They pester you constantly, asking you how you’re feeling, trying to make idle chatter that you’ll never reply to. Your self-esteem has plummeted so far that if there were a hell, the level of your self-esteem would be far beneath it. So you count the days that pass where you don’t eat food, where your friends message you and tell you how wonderful you are even though you aren’t in the slightest and they’re just doing their best to crack your shell and pull you out of the abyss.

You don’t go outside for days at a time, and when you do it’s only to your front lawn, to pick the grass out and throw it in the air like confetti for your little pity party. You hang off of your couch upside down most days and count the scrapes on the wooden floor, the scuffs from your sneakers and your dad’s work shoes, the ones that you can’t scrub off no matter how much you polish the floor.

Sometimes your friends knock at your door. They try to coax you out in their own different ways. Rose knocks and says your name carefully, asks you to come out and eat something, and you never answer. Jade yells at you angrily and pounds her fist against the door for hours, and your only thought ever is that it really must hurt hitting the door for that long. Dave knocks for a while, but then he sits at your door and babbles about nothing, and you sit with your back to it, listening to him yammer on about nothing, and you wish you were confident enough to open the door and let him in but you just aren’t anymore.

When the house gets too still, too silent, you blare music loud enough to drive away your negative thoughts and you pace. The floor wears slowly beneath your socks, a path being carved out by your anxiety and sadness and fear of things you shouldn’t be afraid of. No one ever tells you to shut the music off, like you used to do to your annoying neighbors. You pace back and forth and side to side and hum to yourself. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes you look at the messages on your phone while they pour in, thinking about ways you could answer.

Could you say hello? Could you be casual, even after all of this time ignoring them? Could you ask them how they’ve been doing? Maybe you could ask Rose how her relationship with Kanaya is going, or Jade how she’s been getting along with the young, alternative version of her grandfather. Maybe you could ask Dave if he’s made any new raps lately, if he’s still with Karkat or if they’re broken up. Maybe you could ask if they still like you, or if they really ever did.

You don’t sleep a lot, but whenever you do you wake up with scribbles on your wall, bites and nips at what little self-esteem you have leftover. Your teeth are stupid. You might still have your powers, but you aren’t the God you used to be. You’ll be alone for the rest of your life. Your friends never really did like you, they were just good actors.

It has been five months, two weeks, three days, and five hours since you’ve beaten the game.

And you are, undoubtedly, alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE IN THE HOME STRETCH

_ “there’s comfort in the silence of a living room _

_ the tv is on for you _

_ hide in your basement while your house burns down _

_ your teeth are loose inside of your gums _

_ they will eventually fall out” _

—the front bottoms, swimming pool

Sometimes, the silence is almost comforting. It still bothers you in a vague way, but the way it makes your ears ring becomes a welcome sound when you spend so many days by yourself, passing time by pacing and watching bullshit shows on TV that you don’t think ever existed when you still lived on the earth you destroyed. You watch movies sometimes, ones that are holed up in the dusty cabinet your dad bought you for your ninth birthday because your movies being scattered about were starting to throw off the decor of the house.

You dig through it for a movie you haven’t seen in years. When you come across Con Air, you fall to your knees in front of the case and start crying, fingers still pressed to the glass cabinet. You haven’t watched it since your fifteenth birthday and you hated it. Maybe it was because you’d lost your sense of wonder. You certainly don’t have it back, but you take the movie with you anyway, move from your living room to your basement where the TV is bigger and put the movie in the player. There’s a handprint on the glass cabinet from where you had your fingers pressed while you cried into the wooden floor, and you don’t try to clean it.

You watch the movie on the shitty, old torn sofa that has been in the basement since you were two-years-old, curled into yourself like the child you are, the child you’ll always be, because you just can’t face the world. You dig your nails into your legs so hard that they start bleeding, but you don’t do anything about it. By the time the movie ends there’s dried blood on your legs, but you still do nothing to wash it off. You open the DVD player and crack the disk over your knee, break it to pieces in your hands and they start bleeding, too, the sharp plastic digging into them while you sob and smash the remains of the disk beneath your bare feet, and then they are bleeding, too.

You make your way back upstairs bleeding all over the place, but instead of finding bandaids or cleaning anything off, you sit with your back pressed against the front door, staring at your dark staircase, the one you haven’t walked up in weeks, months, years. Who knows how long it’s really been. You sit by yourself at the door for hours and hours until you hear a knock and feel it push back against you, and then you hear, “Hey.” it’s Dave.

“Hi,” you say, and your voice is incredibly hoarse, like you haven’t had a drink for ages. You don’t know how long it’s really been, but what you do know is it’s been a pretty long time and you’re surprised by now that your body isn’t decomposing by now, that your brain isn’t shutting down and your lungs aren’t constructing and your heart isn’t wilting. This is the first time you’ve spoken to anyone in months. “How are you?”

“Shitty,” comes the response. “I broke up with Karkat, today.”

“Oh,” is all you can manage. You pick at the dry blood on your hands and it chips away like peeling wallpaper. “Sorry.”

You don’t get a response. You don’t know how to comfort someone else because you don’t even know how to comfort yourself. So you slip your fingers underneath the door even though they’re covered in sticky, dried blood, and Dave silently covers your fingers with his, and you start crying quietly because this is the first time you’ve touched a real, living person for months now, the first time any part of your body has been outside of the house. “I know it hurts.”

“Of course you do,” he replies with a short chuckle. Losing people is the only thing you can relate to—you lost your dad, you had a nasty break-up with Vriska (she’s let it go by now, but you just can’t), you used to like Rose but she never cared for you that way, and you lost Dave to someone else because you were a coward with the lowest of low self-esteem and you could never build yourself up enough to ask him out even though you loved him. “I’m sorry, dude.”

He curls his fingers around yours. “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah,” you say, still hung up on his apology. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is gonna be the first time in a long time i've actually finished an entire multi-chap fic


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPEN

> “i will stop cutting my pants into shorts
> 
> i will address the issues i cannot ignore
> 
> and i will do the things i think you might like
> 
> and i will be alone probably the rest of my life”
> 
> —the front bottoms, swimming pool

You finally stop holing yourself up in your house after seven months. It takes the small amount of courage you have left to open your front door and step outside, the sun almost painful as it beats down on your pale skin and darkness-adjusted eyes. You’re covered from head to toe in bandaids from the disk you smashed, your palms and feet and knees covered in bandaids smothered in antibiotic cream, some so coated that they’re falling off, but you can’t say you really mind. You stand in front of your door with your back to it, palm on the knob, afraid and scared and desperate to go back inside, but you know you can’t. You can’t ignore the things you don’t want to do anymore, the things you’re afraid of.

The first step away from your door feels like fifty. You feel like a toddler learning to walk, wobbly and unstable on your legs, only there isn’t anyone to guide you, coax you to them. You swallow your anxiety and step off of the porch, make your way down the cobblestone pathway that someone must have put in while you were hidden away, and make your way onto the sidewalk. You walk slowly, carefully, as though this is the first time you’ve ever walked.

And it’s hard, because the sun is hot and bright and the cuts on your feet burn and you’re so nervous, so anxious, that your hands are shaking profusely. The furthest you go until you collapse is Dave’s house, apartment, more or less, and you wonder if he lives there because it reminds him of his childhood. His old house was destroyed when the game began. Yours made it through, made it into the game, and made it out of the game in one piece. You knocked off the extra floors Rose made but it’s still the same house you grew up in, and something about it is comforting but painful in the worst ways.

“John?” You hear from behind you. You jump up quickly, fast enough that you fall forward to your knees and hit the sidewalk hard. The skin on your knees peel off. Dave is standing above you, casting a shadow over you and blocking out the sun. He looks healthy. Tan. Happy. Like he actually gets out, like he hasn’t been holed up in his apartment for months. “Shit, are you alright? I didn’t mean to scare you.”

You nod and stand. He helps you with calloused hands and a soft grip, something you’d never expect out of him but are happily surprised by. “I broke a DVD,” you inform him, internally chastising yourself for saying something so stupid. “Con Air.”

“It was a shitty movie, anyway,” he says, and you find yourself laughing. Laughing for the first time since your dad died, letting your guard down as you collapse against Dave’s chest with tears in your eyes and he holds you to him, encompassing you with his body. When did he get so much taller than you? Or has he always been taller than you, and you just never noticed? “Is that why you look like you got mauled by a bear?”

You nod into his chest. He runs his fingers through your hair because he always knew how you liked that and you can’t believe he still remembers. Can’t believe he never forgets stupid things about you, because you don’t think you’re worth it, never really have. You thought you’d be alone for the rest of your life but you aren’t quite sure while Dave holds you on his front lawn in front of everyone living on Earth C. “I’m sorry,” it’s all you can think to say.

“For what?”

“Me?” and you find yourself laughing again, giggling like a schoolgirl.

Dave cracks a smile and kisses your forehead. “Alright.”

And then he kisses you on the lips, holds your hand in his and tells you softly, quietly, that he loves you. You return the sentiment near-silently, but you know he hears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done. it's over. b ye  
> i just got back from vacation so ya, here's the last chap!!! hope y'all enjoyed it...this is the first time i've finished an entire fic since my creepypasta phase
> 
> i'm gonna try and work on some new stuff soon!!! school starts back up in a few weeks, but that won't really hold me back 'cause i'm cyberschooled which is incredibly easy. only takes me like 3 hours to be where i need to be


End file.
